Bono helps deliver Christmas to Africa

NEW YORK (AP) -- Irish rock star Bono and Sen. Bill Frist joined the Rev. Franklin Graham in airlifting Christmas gifts to HIV-positive children in Africa.

The group, which also included Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and chairman of the Global Business Coalition on HIV-AIDS, held a news conference Tuesday at Kennedy Airport, where an Antonov 225 cargo plane was loaded with 83,000 individual gifts packed in shoe boxes.

The airlift is part of Operation Christmas Child, a relief effort headed by Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham.

The plane will took off Wednesday for Uganda and will also deliver gifts in Sudan, said Kristen Lee, a spokeswoman for Operation Christmas Child.

Doctor's license revoked, may have supplied for Ryder

LOS ANGELES -- A doctor who had his medical license revoked last week frequently catered to the prescription drug demands of celebrities, including actress Winona Ryder, a newspaper reported.

Jules Mark Lusman, 49, examined some patients only briefly before prescribing drugs, according to a report by the Medical Board of California.

Singer-actress Courtney Love was among the patients named in the Tuesday story by the Los Angeles Times. Pat Kingsley, a spokeswoman for Love, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

The medical board said Lusman's stated specialty was laser surgery. However, in its report, the board detailed allegations that Lusman catered to the demands of wealthy or famous drug-seekers for prescription narcotics that would otherwise have to be obtained on the street.

Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman for the board, which licenses and regulates the state's 112,000 doctors, said it's possible that criminal proceedings will be launched against Lusman.

Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, declined comment, saying an investigation was under way.

Lusman called the decision to revoke his license "grossly unfair" in an interview Monday with the television program "Inside Edition" from his mother's home in South Africa.

He also denied any wrongdoing to the medical board while asserting that some of his patients suffered from intractable pain.

Ryder had 37 prescriptions filled by 20 doctors from January 1996 to December 1998, according to Ryder's probation report, released Friday.